I called Apple on the phone this morning to place an order, got a message saying they are overwhelmed with calls and I should call back later. So I went on their web site to place the order, I went as far as verifying my AT&T account, then got an error and the order couldn't go through. I repeated above several times, same result.

So I went to AT&T web site to place the order, got to a page that says they are sorry, the order couldn't be processed. So I called AT&T sales on the phone. First I got a very nice lady who said she got calls from people who wanted to pre-order the iPhone 4 and the Apple internal system is down. She then said that they told her the system would go back online within an hour. She even offered to call me back in an hour to take my order. She did call back and said the system was back online, call the Apple support number. I was excited and made the call, got the same we are overwhelmed message as before and asked me to call back later.

Waited for a couple of hours, repeated step one which is contacting Apple, no luck. Repeated step two, which is contacting AT&T. Got another very nice lady on the phone, she said we had handled 30 or so people wanting to pre-order the iPhone 4 and she checked with Apple system and it was still down. She said you might want to try tomorrow or go to a local AT&T store.

Checked online, various web sites said that since the AT&T retail stores are using the same system as the reps on the phone, they couldn't place any orders to Apple either, but at least they are taking your order info down on paper. Wow! We are back to the old analog. Didn't go.

Called our local Apple store and the rep said that some folks had success with the new Apple Store app on the iPhone: folks kept trying ordering using their iPhone via the app and some orders actually went through. So I downloaded the app, tried placing an order, got a message saying they can't place the order, and I should make an appointment with an Apple sales associate at the store or call Apple or go online which essentially goes back my first step.